At ABB, we remain focused on advancing our drive technology in terms of performance, design and operational value.

AR Madhusudan
President and Local Division Manager, Drive Products, ABB India 

How do you view the current demand for Drives in the construction and mining equipment sector in India? What are the major growth drivers for this segment? Are there any key challenges?

ABB drives are being used extensively in both construction and mining segments. For instance, in the case of construction equipment, our drives play a key role in efficiently running tower cranes, mobile cranes and more. In the case of mining equipment, our drives are increasingly getting integrated into equipment like ventilation fans or blowers, conveyors, dewatering pumps and more.

As India continues to witness rapid growth in industrialization and urbanization, this is also driv-ing growth in segments like mining and construction. With growing investments in infrastruc-ture, a push for automation and efficiency and the country’s focus on its net-zero targets, there is a rising need for operational efficiency as well as reduction of energy consumption. In line with this, drives are increasingly becoming important for these sectors as they enable ease of operation, protection of motors, safety and energy efficiency.

While the technologies exist today, there is still a wide opportunity in India for more OEMs and contractors to understand the real long-term benefits of these technologies and start adopting them.

How do you optimize your drives for harsh operating environments (such as dust, moisture, extreme temperatures)?

Industries like mining and construction are often exposed to harsh operating environments. In line with this, ABB’s drives are designed with a clear understanding of the demands posed by tough environments. This reflects in across several aspects, from component selection and prod-uct design to comprehensive testing and support. We offer high IP-rated enclosures like IP55 and IP66 to protect against dust and moisture and other harsh environments – a higher protec-tion class ensures smooth processes by reducing downtime and maximizing performance. Addi-tionally, all ABB drives have a high-quality coating on the printed circuit boards to give protec-tion against corrosion. ABB drives also feature protection against vibration and mechanical shock, and extreme temperatures with the ability to handle temperatures up to 55 °C. 

What advancements have you made in load handling capacity, efficiency, and torque densi-ty of your units?

In heavy industries like mining and construction, performance and reliability are more im-portant than ever. At ABB, we remain focused on advancing our drive technology in terms of performance, design and operational value. Our all-inclusive design-based drives are built to deliver better harmonic mitigation even at partial loads, efficiently supporting load-intensive applications while keeping the network clean.

They also are packed with several features like motor thermal protection and EMC filters, help-ing overcome real-world operating challenges in mining and construction segments. When space constraint is a critical factor, we also have our value-added offering, package drives, which are extremely compact with all essential features built in and reliable with panel-less IP55 class installation.

What trends are you observing in terms of customer requirements, such as performance, efficiency, compactness, or digital integration?

Much like the general industry, technology is playing a crucial role in mining and construction and today, safety and sustainability are among the key priorities in these sectors. Operators are looking to maximize productivity while ensuring safety and energy efficiency and reducing costs. There is also growing expectation for easy connectivity to enable monitoring and gain insights on key equipment parameters. For instance, our drives are equipped with communication capa-bilities supporting various communication protocol, enabling operators to seamlessly integrate the drives into automation or control systems as needed.

How are your products addressing evolving customer needs related to safety, energy effi-ciency, and sustainability?

Along with growth in the mining and construction segments, customer expectations are consist-ently moving towards smarter, safer, and energy-efficient solutions. These priorities are very much reflected across ABB’s wide range of product portfolio. Several applications in mining and construction segments are motor-driven and pairing a high-efficiency motor with drive can re-sult in significant energy savings. Be it fans, pumps, cranes or conveyors, by optimizing motor control, drives help operators lower operational costs, improve energy efficiency, and meet sus-tainability goals. Further enabling these industries to optimize energy use, we also offer regen-erative drives that can feed the braking power back to the network.

Safety and sustainability are key to how we operate. ABB drives integrate features like safe torque off (STO) and comply with Ecodesign directive which is aimed to improve the environ-mental performance of products. The reliability of drives is tested through various methods to ensure their performance and durability. Globally, we employ several testing processes to verify the reliability of our drives, including Accelerated Life Testing (ALT), and Failure Analysis, to un-derstand the physics of failures and continuously improve their products based on the findings. Our rigorous testing helps ensure that the drives meet high reliability standards and perform reliably throughout their lifecycle. We follow a circular approach aiming to minimize waste and maximize resource efficiency by recycling, reusing, and regenerating resources.